WASHINGTON — It has been almost a year since President Donald Trump won a second, nonconsecutive term, and that election’s impact on energy policy was evident at the America First Policy Institute’s Global Energy Summit.

AFPI Vice Chair of Energy & Environment Oliver McPherson-Smith proclaimed the meeting — held at the Waldorf Astoria Washington DC (formerly a Trump International Hotel) — “the anti-COP,” in that it was celebrating fossil fuel and not the talk about net-zero emissions that will dominate the U.N. Climate Change Conference in November in Belém, Brazil.

“I won’t be at COP 30 this year,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said at the AFPI event Oct. 22. “I think there’s a reasonable chance I will be at COP 31 because we want to bring our arguments to our opponents.”

Wright argued that the Trump administration is starting to push back against maximalist climate arguments that have been used to try to control entire industries.

“It’s real; it’s an issue,” Wright said. “But it’s just not remotely close to a top five or top 10 issue in the world, but we treat it like this existential threat to the planet. Nothing, nothing in the data says as much, but no one calls that out.”

Major U.S. allies have said they agree that the focus should be on energy security and affordability, but they tell Wright they cannot say that aloud, he claimed.

“They’re realizing this justification for big government and the replacement for religion — it isn’t unchallenged anymore, and it doesn’t stand up under challenge,” Wright said.

Wright said the other side of the argument on climate change is still winning, but he predicted that would not last.

“We’ve got the minority, but we’re right, and it’s easier to win an argument when you’re right than when you’re wrong,” Wright said. “They have more people; they have more momentum; but they don’t have math and facts and humans on their side. We do, and we’re going to win.”

Wright celebrated that the Trump administration was recently able to stop the International Maritime Organization from implementing the first global carbon tax when it adjourned before voting on a measure that would have mandated decarbonization of international shipping. The group had agreed to the standard in April, but then the administration found out about it, Wright said.

“I remember I talked to one of the energy ministers from a big, allied country of ours (might even speak the same language as us), and as I spoke to this great gal, she said, ‘Well, we know it’s a forgone conclusion. It’s going to pass anyway. We want to be in the tent, because that’ll be better than out of the tent.’ Well, I wouldn’t assume that’s going to pass.”

Wright worked the phone and eventually Trump posted on Truth Social slamming the proposal. In the end, the effort was enough to spike the tax for a year at least.

The change is being felt in domestic policy as well, with Continental Resources founder and Trump donor Harold Hamm saying at the event that the Biden administration wanted to put the oil and gas industry out of business, but now Trump is taking the opposite approach.

“We’ve got an administration that is actually leading,” Hamm said. “Making all these changes that are necessary to get America back on track, to make America great again.”

Going forward, Hamm said he would like to see the permitting process changed so that eminent domain for pipelines is handled by the federal government and the requirements to perform environmental impact statements are slashed.

He also warned that the oil and gas industry was oversupplied by foreign competitors in OPEC, mainly Saudi Arabia.

“They are doing it all for market share,” Hamm said. “We’ve seen this before, right? It’s not going to last very long, folks. You’re looking at about a 10-year window here that suddenly will change, and once you peek out and start over the hill, guess what? It’s going to be a little tough to get it turned around next time.”

Horizontal drilling gave the world cheap energy, but that was a one-time event, and going forward, getting more supply from new technologies will not be easy, he said. As in the power sector, the next big thing for oil and gas is growing demand from data centers.

“Their fuel of choice, what’s going to drive them, is natural gas,” Hamm said. “That’s the best thing. So, we’re a little bit early on that curve. They’re building them, and when they get online, folks, they’re going to be the hell to draw on gas. And, so, you know that’s going to be a big bright spot.”

While Congress has already enacted major changes using Republican votes alone, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said he hoped to move bipartisan permitting legislation. That will be important to winning the artificial intelligence race because the U.S. already has the brain power and the capital to compete.

“What’s holding it back is the regulatory side,” Guthrie said. “We have to get the right regulatory side, but also, more importantly than anything, access to energy. Energy is everything in AI.”

The issues around permitting have limited the impact of Democrats’ policies, with Guthrie noting that the Inflation Reduction Act allocated $42 billion for broadband, but not one cent had been spent when Trump re-entered office. Now, with the “abundance agenda” taking root in Democratic politics and aimed at actually building infrastructure, Guthrie said he sees a possible opening.

“Maybe there’s an opportunity, we’re hoping, for us to come together to do a bipartisan permitting reform so that we can move electrons,” he said.